71% of Washington DC Chefs Are Immigrants

If the proposed immigrant and travel ban in the U.S. goes ahead, the capital – Washington DC – may go hungry.

According to DistrictMeasured.com, the website of the District of Colombia’s Office of Revenue Analysis, a whopping 71% of chefs in the Washington D.C. area are immigrants. With so many big mouths to feed, and proper nutrition needed for making important decisions and passing laws, you can’t help but wonder what would happen should the kitchens run out of qualified staff – a country cannot run on homemade sandwiches alone.

Jobs that involve cooking and preparing food may feature highly in the capital city, but other sectors are heavily reliant on immigrant labor too. Other immigrant-heavy jobs include 80% of carpenters, 57% of childcare workers, 51% nurses and psychiatric workers and 46% of economists. Think about that the next time you build a house in D.C., drop your kids at childcare, check your bank balance and then need psychiatric help after doing so.

Immigrants make up nearly a quarter of the Washington region’s population but account for a disproportionate number of entrepreneurs – 33% of business owners were born outside the U.S.

The question needs to be asked: If the Washington area suddenly lost its entire foreign-born population, what would happen to the local economy?

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